Geisinger Health System

HHS has announced the winners of a contest challenging designers to leverage technology to make the inscrutable – the basic healthcare explanation of benefits – so easy to read even a human being can comprehend it. Several hospitals around the country will test the designs.

Geisinger Health System is trying to fill 1,500 open positions for physicians, nurses, clinicians and support staff after hiring 444 people since July 1. Healthcare hiring has been a driver of U.S. jobs creation since the recession, especially over the past two years.

As hospital margins on traditional fee-for-service Medicare patients plunged deeper into the red, cost-cutting at hospitals has allowed many to make up those losses from their commercially insured clientele.

As conversations in healthcare continue to focus on quality, patient safety and a system shifting to value over volume, Modern Healthcare's 12th annual ranking of the 50 Most Influential Physician Executives and Leaders increasingly reflects the industry players charged with making it happen.

The 17 IT companies that made the pledge include Allscripts, Athenahealth, Cerner Corp., Epic Systems and Meditech. They provide record systems to 90% of U.S. hospitals. Providers include Ascension, Geisinger, HCA, Intermountain and Kaiser Permanente.

Big insurance mergers, the evolution of the nation's delivery systems, the direction of drug and device regulation—these are some of the more important issues we'll be covering this year, and they drove our decisions on which people to watch in 2016.